Tag Archives: Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve

This letter is with regard to land owned by the State of Michigan on the Yellow Dog Plains and next to the Yellow Dog River in Michigamme Township, Marquette County (40 acres, NE1/4 SE1/4, Sec.13, T50N, R29W).

As you know, in a 2003 review, this 40-acre parcel was designated “non-development” by former Fisheries Chief Kelley Smith. Fisheries biologist George Madison, who works out of the Baraga office of the DNR, reversed Smith only this year. It is unclear why, and I urge you to look thoroughly into the matter as part of your review and clarify for the public whether and on what grounds the DNR thinks Fisheries’ reversal of its position on this parcel should stand.

Madison himself says that he was unable to tell why Smith had placed the non-development restriction on the parcel in the first place.

For some reason Kelley Smith (former Fisheries Chief) had placed a non-development restriction recommendation on this parcel during an 8-21-2003 review. Indeed while there is no water or aquatic resources on this parcel, with care and respect for the 2003 review I carried Mr.Smith’s recommendations forward in case there was an element of uniqueness to this parcel that we are not aware of.

For this 8-12-2014 review, I have changed Fisheries Division’s recommendation to “development” with no restrictions.

What reason did Kelley Smith have for restricting development on the parcel? Madison cannot say, and in May of this year Forestry Supervisor Jeff Stampfly admitted he, too, was “at a loss” when it came to accounting for Smith’s review. But then they both recommend its reversal. Both Stampfly and Madison seem to suggest that Smith was simply mistaken, or at least they see his 2003 review as problematic. What exactly did Smith say? Isn’t it possible that Smith discerned some “element of uniqueness” here that Madison and Stampfly are unable to appreciate? The prudent thing would be to find out.

To that end, the DNR should publish Smith’s August 2003 review — undertaken before the mining boom had really gotten underway — and take what Smith says there under advisement. To help clarify things, Smith himself (now in retirement) should be interviewed about the parcel and what, if anything, makes it unique or deserving of non-development status, and his statement entered into the public record. If Smith and Madison still disagree on the status of this parcel, then that disagreement should be aired publicly and accounted for in whatever report you file. The public deserves this measure of transparency.

For his part, Madison could state more clearly why he reversed Smith in this 2014 review and did not do so previously. Why proceed with “care and respect” for Smith’s review, then suddenly change course after Lundin Mining shows interest in the parcel? Madison seems to be arguing in his comment that Fisheries should place no restrictions on the parcel because he can identify “no water or aquatic resources” directly on the parcel; this seems to be Stampfly’s position as well. But the Yellow Dog River is only a few hundred feet away from the boundary of the proposed site. Maybe, for Smith, that proximity was enough.

As Smith may have known, there are a number of ways in which industrial development on this parcel might seriously compromise the Yellow Dog River. Groundwater flow in the glacial aquifer underlying the Yellow Dog Plains would make it difficult to limit water contamination from drilling to the parcel itself. Even a well-run drilling operation will see lapses: Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve has “photo documentation of ripped sump pit liners, drill bit wash basins that are overflowing, and broken fences” from the exploratory drilling done for the Eagle Mine. Exploratory drilling is also bound to require some roadwork and other infrastructure build-up on the Yellow Dog Plains, and it will increase traffic to and from the parcel. That, too, puts the Yellow Dog River at risk.

Roadside mitigation efforts in October of this year. The Eagle Mine haul route has already put the Yellow Dog watershed at risk and contaminated the Salmon Trout River.

As you are no doubt aware, just this past summer, a road crew working on the Eagle Mine haul route ruptured a perched groundwater seep, dumping sediment and releasing turbid water into the Salmon Trout River, in violation of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act. Mining’s risks never end at the mine’s gate.

In closing, I urge you to take your time looking into the confusion over Smith’s 2003 review and all other questions and comments you receive regarding this parcel. One newspaper account I read has you saying that you intend to finish your analysis by January, having received written comments from the public only a month before that. Wouldn’t it be better to allow time for follow-up interviews or requests for further information? I trust that you and the DNR do not want to give the impression that this request for public comment is merely pro forma, and want to do the right thing by the public you serve.

Lundin Mining CEO Paul Conibear hit all the right notes when he announced last week that Eagle Mine is now in production. Completed ahead of schedule and on budget, the new nickel and copper mine on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula marks “a tremendous achievement”:

The Eagle Mine is a significant new, high-quality, low-cost mine, that has been constructed to the highest of safety, environmental and social responsibility standards.

Our team has done an exemplary job in bringing the mine into production, and we look forward to the operation becoming a significant cash flow generator for the Company and a significant contributor to the local and regional economy. We would like to thank all employees and contractors for their dedication and excellent work in addition to all local stakeholders for their ongoing support.

Analysts and investors seemed pleased as well, and happy to take Conibear at his word. The company’s share price, which had been trending downward, ticked up the day after the announcement. Lundin Mining is “hitting the ground running,” declared one enthusiast, who goes by the pseudonym The Investment Doctor and published his report right on the heels of the company’s press release; “and it’s rare to see a large scale project being completed ahead of schedule. The production is starting just in time to benefit from a strong nickel price.”

Those inclined to follow the Doctor’s advice may wish to consider that his analysis focuses solely on nickel production, and makes no mention of what’s happened to copper prices lately: they’ve plummeted (though, to be fair, they now seem to be rebounding slightly).

In any case, the whole picture may be a little more complicated than the mining company and its boosters would have us believe. Eagle will count as “a significant contributor to the local and regional economy” only if you overlook the effect the mining operation is bound to have on tourism (which currently makes up around 20 percent of the Marquette area’s economy) and the many other detrimental and distorting effects mining will have on the economic life of the Upper Peninsula. Economist Thomas M. Power has run these down. For one thing, he observes, mining operations can hinder entrepreneurship and innovation, and drive away creative professionals and knowledge workers. They prefer not to live around a mine, or on the haul route from mine to mill; nowadays even the miners would rather commute. It remains unclear, too, how the region will benefit in the long term, after the accessible ore runs out and Eagle shuts down.

So one has the feeling that the tepid term “contributor” in Conibear’s statement about the broad economic benefits of the new mining operation was chosen with care: it positions the mining company as a social benefactor, but it reserves any talk of wealth generation for the “flow” of cash into the company coffers. Some will trickle down: the contribution Eagle makes to the economy will be “significant”; but even saying that leaves wiggle room to back away from stronger and more specific language about job creation that was used to promote the project in the first place. The main object here is to reassure Lundin’s creditors.

To bring the bigger picture into focus, we also have to take into account the social costs and environmental risks associated with this new mining operation. When Conibear says that Eagle Mine was built to “the highest of…standards,” I guess he’s talking about mining industry standards. At least some environmental and community groups have different and even higher standards, and they are not satisfied with DEQ enforcement to date or with the Community Environmental Monitoring Program established by Rio Tinto and the non-profit Superior Watershed Partnership (for which Lundin Mining will pay $300,000 annually). For local stakeholders like the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, who opted out of the Superior Watershed Partnership deal, the new mine falls short on many important counts. Together with the National Wildlife Federation, the Huron Mountain Club and the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, the KBIC sued, only to lose in the Michigan Court of Appeals in August of this year; but that loss hardly means the concerns that motivated the twelve-year legal challenge to the mine were without merit.

The stark fact remains that like Rio Tinto before them, Lundin Mining cannot point to a single example of copper and nickel mining in the United States or Canada that did not pollute surrounding waters or groundwater. Questions raised by Jack Parker about the geological stress field of the Yellow Dog Plains — and the risk of “sudden collapse” he alleges was covered up by regulatory collusion — continue to be “studiously ignored.” Haul road construction has been mired in controversy: it took corporate wrangling of the County Road Commission and exercise of eminent domain to push through the the current route; and that road work has already violated the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act.

The point is not to multiply examples or revisit all the controversies that still surround Eagle Mine. Now that the mine is in operation, some of these issues may even be “moot,” as a writer in Crains suggested after the decision by the Court of Appeals in August. But taken together, they raise the question whether Lundin Mining has done enough (since purchasing the Eagle operation from from Rio Tinto) to earn the trust, let alone gain the support, of local stakeholders who were not already in the mining camp or the mining company’s pocket. So far, Lundin has demonstrated that it can bulldoze ahead and get stuff done. Its claim to social license remains unsettled.

Haul road construction for Eagle Mine has already polluted the Salmon Trout River, but unless you’ve been following the Eagle Mine story closely you wouldn’t know that after reading in the local paper about this minor disaster: a road crew’s accidental “exposure” — or rupture — of a perched groundwater seep. “Dirty Roadside Runoff,” by John Pepin, a Marquette Mining Journal staff writer, never once mentions Eagle Mine or Eagle’s parent company, Lundin Mining. Pepin is scrupulous at least in this regard: he keeps the mining company clean.

(The Mining Journal is available online to subscribers only, but you can read it on a phone or tablet if you download the paper’s free app).

The front page item sidesteps any mention of Eagle, laying the “unlawful discharge of sediment and turbid water to a wetland ravine” — which violates the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act — at the feet of the Marquette County Road Commission. The Michigan DEQ sent a violation notice directly to the Road Commission on August 4th; to date, so far as I can tell, Lundin Mining and Eagle Mine were not put on notice either by the DEQ or the EPA. Nor, it seems, will the local press hold the mining company accountable. Instead, the Journal seems to have taken pains to keep the company’s name out of the dirt, and keep the reading public in denial. (Those looking for a more honest and more informative account will find it here, on the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve’s site).

Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve’s site features this photo — dated August 6th — and other photos of the perched seep’s destruction.

Let’s be clear. The Road Commission has undertaken this “upgrade” of County Road AAA for the mining company; there is no other reason for the work, and no other reason to advertise the work as an upgrade except to pretend that the Eagle Mine haul route will benefit the public in some way. The truth could have been stated in a single sentence: Lundin will be the primary if not the sole beneficiary of the road work on the AAA.

Pepin’s article never comes close to stating that one simple fact, and never even hints at the controversy over the haul route that led to this disaster. But this is about more than shoddy journalism or what might even be a case of corporate capture at the editorial offices of the Mining Journal.

As Lundin prepares to bring Eagle online, and as the mining boom proceeds all around Lake Superior, clear lines of accountability are critical — and need to be carefully drawn. Big miners continue to “de-diversify” and juniors are trying to scale up: in the turmoil, we’ve seen mine properties around Lake Superior flipped (e.g., Copperwood, or Eagle itself); others, like Twin Metals, thrown into limbo; and who can tell what effects Lundin’s big South American acquisition of Freeport’s Candelaria (in partnership with Franco-Nevada) will have in this northern district?

In a situation like this, where ownership stakes are changing hands and companies are exerting undue influence over public officials, accountability can get blurry and responsibilities neglected. The last thing we need — when the future of Lake Superior itself is at stake — is a compliant and servile press adding to the confusion.